Tesla to slash thousands of jobs in profitability drive

Tesla said it plans to cut 9% of its workforce as part of a restructuring intended to reduce costs and boost profitability.

The layoffs at Elon Musk’s electric car company come as it tries to increase production of its Model 3 sedan and turn a quarterly profit this year.

Tesla said the more than 3,000 cuts would affect mostly salaried employees, excluding workers producing its cars.

Mr Musk said the job cuts were a “difficult decision”.

Tesla employed more than 37,000 people at the end of last year.

“Given that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us,” he wrote in an email to employees and posted on Twitter.

“What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless we can eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable.”